AsepticSure®

How It Works

The AsepticSure® hospital sterilization system is a portable, affordable, easily operated system that can be used by trained maintenance staff. It is placed in the center of the room to be cleaned. Vents and doors are then sealed with an easily and cleanly removable 3M-tape product.

The system is turned on from outside of the room through a remote wireless computer interface. The room is filled with a unique and patented gas formula that is ozone-based to specific humidity and charge strength.

Following the charge period, the sterilization process is remotely turned off and a separate technology is employed that restores the atmosphere inside the room to EPA standards. The end result leaves the treated room sterile of pathogens with a sweet, fresh oxygen-charged atmosphere very similar to what you experience after a thunderstorm.

From an operational perspective, the turnaround time for re-use of rooms up to 4,000 cubic feet in size is 80 to 90 minutes. This includes the decontamination of carpets, drapes and medical equipment, all to the 6 log standard – the Gold Standard benchmark by which all disinfection technologies are measured.

Where It’s Being Developed

Current research is being conducted at Medizone’s dedicated BSL2A certified laboratories located in Innovation Park, Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, under the direction of Dr. Michael E. Shannon, former Director General Laboratory Center for Disease Control, Health Canada.

The laboratory is located in the heart of one of the finest bio-medical communities in Canada and is providing a primary research and development platform for the Corporation as it proceeds down what is now a clear path to commercialization with its lead product, AsepticSure™.

Given the outstanding range of bactericidal kill rates we have achieved to date with the pathogens most often associated with hospital derived infections (including Tuberculosis), it has become clear there are opportunities abounding to expand scientific horizons through collaborative arrangements in many diverse and exciting new applications.

Research and Trial Results

Medizone is currently preparing for a large-scale multi-hospital trial at sites in Canada. It is anticipated that this trial will commence in Q1, 2014. Given the recent performance of its patented system in eradicating an MRSA outbreak in Belleville General Hospital (BGH), the outcome of the upcoming trial should ultimately lead to a revolutionary upgrade in hospital cleaning practices, worldwide.

Going forward, the AsepticSure system is expected to significantly reduce the incidence of nosocomial infections, a number which now exceeds 1.7 million in the US annually (CDC, 2007).

Based on recent CDC cost-estimates, modest predictions of AsepticSure performance would see hospitals saving $6 to $7 for each $1 invested in this technology through reduced costs associated with prolonged admissions, re-admissions, expanded use of antibiotics and expensive ICU care.

In a proposal to the US Senate by the Infectious Diseases Society of America (Jan 2009) it was argued that “State and local public health departments are unable to maintain their capacity to adequately address emerging infectious disease threats in community and healthcare settings.

Such settings include tracking and treating specific organisms such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) which are becoming endemic in many settings; Clostridium difficile infections which are on the rise; and multidrug resistant strains of the so-called “gram negative” types of bacteria for which few treatments exist”.

Large room mock-up trials by Medizone’s research team at Queen’s University have not found a pathogen to date (gram negative or gram positive, anaerobic or aerobic) which does not succumb to the AsepticSure decontamination system. This, in essence, equates to ICU or surgical suite sterilization (> 6 log reduction) achieved in 90 minutes or less, with no health risk to staff or threat to the environment.

Pre-inoculated stainless steel test discs as well as carpet swatches (typically found in many health care facilities) were placed in selected locations to assess for antimicrobial effects.

Not only were 100% of the MRSA and C. difficile spores eliminated from the stainless steel discs (7.1 logs bacterial kill for MRSA and 6.2 log bacterial kill for C difficile spores), the pathogens were also completely eliminated from all contaminated carpet samples – something unachievable with any other technology we are aware of.